“I Had a Dream I Went to Bonnaroo.” –B. Shea

That is indeed what it felt like, …a dream. We were only on holiday for a week, but in that week, we traveled into the heart of America’s vast fields of nothingness to set up camp and live detached and self-contained away from our jobs, families and most importantly stress for four days. Of course the total trip was for a week and we found that our time at Bonnaroo was mostly bookended by copious amounts of time in our very fashionable and spacey Toyota Sienna. It was a van built for 8, but we were just 5 with a shit load of bags and gear.

We set off out of Austin at around 7am and instead of having us stop every five minutes to take pee breaks, I thought it would be a good idea to maximize our drive time by urinating in empty bottles along the way.

Mike, who was having his first go at the realm of traveling to a camping style festival, did not approve and was angered by my urinating in a bottle. He was afraid that I would somehow not manage to urinate entirely in the bottle and spray his pillow.

I told him to shut up and that he was being a baby.

Anyway, that’s us there on the road. Don’t worry. I got Mike who was driving at the time to look back at me last.

Our first stop was Memphis, TN, home of Stax Records, Beale Street, Graceland, and of course, my father’s brother, Neil Shea. My brother and I dropped the boys off downtown at the motel they booked in advance and proceeded to travel deep into the suburbs of Shelby County to spend the night with our Aunt and Uncle whom we had not seen in some time. We had BBQ dinner at a place called Corky’s, went back home, watched the Celtics play the Lakers and drank some Scotch that I had purchased for my Uncle as a gift for his 70th birthday.

It was nice and relaxing and in the morning, I felt rejuvenated, refreshed and ready to push on to Nashville for stop number two before getting to Bonnaroo. Unfortunately, Matt, Mike, and Travis decided to take it to the house the previous night and with the exception of Matt all looked like hammered shit. Travis apparently didn’t even get out of bed until like 10 minutes before I arrived back at the motel to pick them up. “Whoa guys! Easy! We’re not even at Bonnaroo yet. Geez.” This is right after I told Travis he looked like hammered shit. It took him about five whole seconds to muster up the energy he somehow found in his aged bones to give me this sign that he heard me from the back seat. At least he's got his priorities straight. Most of the time when I partied hard AND smoked vast amounts of cancer sticks, it usually left my mouth feeling like an ashtray the next morning, but I guess he "needs" it. **Don't forget about the "cough," that I was being accused of spreading.**

We continued on to Nashville with our regular individual regimens. I drove, cause I LIKE IT, Travis read his new Hunter S. Thompson book about the Hells Angels aloud to Matt, but had to pass it over to Matt to read because he kept having coughing fits. *These would later be blamed on me because I had some massive coughing fits on the last day of the festival. No one remembers before because of how massive my fits were. But hey, it was dusty; I had quit smoking and was on the road with four other serious smokers. Bryan my brother played Pac Man on his new phone and Mike slept. I wouldn’t pee in another bottle till later the next day.

Nashville was boring. The motel that my brother and I sort of got suckered into splitting/paying for, and thusly staying in with Travis and Mike couldn’t have been in a worse section of town. Bryan and I once again deviated from the group to visit our Uncle’s daughter, our cousin, Kristen who lived about 15 minutes away from the motel. It was good to see her. We went out for Sushi, talked about what I consider the myth of A.D.D. or A.D.H.D., Global Warming, and why my Uncle seems to take Rush Limbaugh as gospel. It was good hanging out with Kristen and her new husband Claiborne who I’ve really come to respect and admire. He made mention of this mythological cousin of his named Oceana who was absolutely beautiful and potentially single. I was asking why she wasn’t at dinner with us. It’s always been that way with this state and I. Tennessee and my family that lives there always seem to know some beautiful ladies that could be a potential good match for me, but because my stay in Tennessee is always so brief, it never works out. I'd have to love 'em and leave 'em and I'm just not sure I'm down with that. They would have me just move there, but, I don’t think it’s for me.

ANYWHO, sorry to get off track there. I got back to the motel much later than I wanted to after procuring provisions from the local grocery store and went to sleep ultra fast. Unfortunately, my coughing fits began that night and I kept people up. We left Nashville at like 7 in the morning to get a good camping spot. This would be the start of things to come in the early rise department of sleep. Matt decided that night to spend the evening and the subsequent late night hours with his future fiancé, Shannon. He also decided that he would just leave when he wanted to the next day and meet us at the camp sight, somehow. At first people were sort of upset with his last minute game-plan alteration. Not with the fact he was spending time with his future fiancee whom he would very soon be married to for the rest of his life (early November), but rather the timing with which he decided to notify us, but we somehow all managed to get past it, wish him the best and when our paths did cross at Bonnarro, we hung.

The road into the Bonnaroo campground was long and so was the traffic. There were several points where we stopped our car, put in neutral and pushed it down the road.

Everyone seemed to be adopting this philosophy and who could blame him or her. With gas prices hovering around the 4-dollar mark, turning the car off seemed to be the best idea for a lot of people.

We met up with Brian Scipione, my other roommate in Nashville and drove down to Bonnaroo wingman-style that morning so that we could park next to each other and maximize our camping space. When we finally got into the camping area with our car, we started unloading and started building our “area.” We never really named it, but we brought so many chairs, that our neighbors, both to the left and right came and joined us under our pop up tent/pavilion thing for most of the four days and just like that we had ourselves an intricate little community.

The people to left, we called the “The Peaches” because they were from Atlanta, GA. Just out of high school and having the summer of their lives, Kate, Taylor, Rebecca, and Tom had decided to travel to Bonnaroo after graduating from high school. It was interesting getting to interact with someone in a place in their lives that we occupied not too long ago. I mostly kept my mouth shut, except for questions I would ask about what their hobbies were and stuff. I watched as everyone else tried to depart some sort of wisdom they had obtained somewhere in the last ten years of their lives. The neighbors to the right we called, “The Js.”
Not because they had a bunch of Marijuana cigarettes, but because their names were Josh and Jessica and it was thought we could just refer to them both as ‘J.’ They were from Green Bay, WI and made a nice addition to our little community.

The festival in general was very welcoming with not nearly as many rules as Coachella had last year. I mean, we could bring booze into the campsite; we could go back and forth to the festival grounds as much as we wanted, even though it was far away. The searching at the gate was lax most of the time and everyone around you just settled for having a good time and for the most part, they were responsible enough to keep it safe and respectable.Inside the festival grounds, entitled “Centeroo,” there was a plethora of booths selling everything from food, to incense, to clothing, to shoes and even booths that were trying to sell opinions about the war, famine, and poverty. There was a booth for almost everything and for the first time in Bonnaroo history, there was a post office made of clay where you could mail items to the outside world.

There was the comedy tent where I saw some funny laughy type stuff and of course the Bonnaroo cinema tent, both of which were air-conditioned. The latter housed screenings of films as late at 4 or 5 am in some cases showing titles ranging from Daft Punk’s documentary “Electroma,” to the new Hunter S. Thomson doc called “Gonzo,” and of course the late night film noir screenings included titles like “The Maltese Falcon” and “Sunset Boulevard.” Sadly, I only went there to watch the Celtics and the Lakers play as both games 4 and 5 were shown.
There were many Boston fans and they were screaming after game four all night, but not so much after game 5, but we all know how that would end, wouldn’t we?

Some of the acts I got to see were: Superdrag, MGMT, Battles, The Sword who rocked the house, Vampire Weekend and a little of Lez Zeppelin who also rocked pretty hard and could be heard throughout the park. Thursday night is also the night where I went to the comedy tent to watch Reggie Watts who is fucking hilarious and Zach Galifianakis, who to me seemed a little overrated and whose set seemed sedated at best.

On Friday, I managed to see the Drive-By Truckers, Minus the Bear and The Swell Season. The latter is a group comprised of to the two lovely individuals from the movie “Once” that won the Academy Award for best original song “Falling Slowly.” Glen Hansard’s powerful voice and very weathered guitar were a high point of the afternoon and his rich, Irish voice carried far across the park bringing listeners from far away who were wondering about this Irish musician wailing at the top of his lungs. He said something I’d never forget too. He talked about obstacles in life and how frustrating they can be sometimes. He said that if you ever come up against an obstacle in life that you can’t get around and you’ve spent a lot of time and energy trying to get around this wall, as he called it, turn around put it at your back and travel all the way around the world so that eventually you get the other side of that wall. Marketa Irglova came out with the band and they all played amazing music for the next hour and a half. The crowd cheered and begged for an encore and they got it too. This would be one of the treasures of Bonnaroo. One I got to share with my friend Mike Byers. I went on to watch M.I.A., the Sri Lankan, west Londoner that now resides in Brooklyn. Her set was energetic, but objectively speaking, she’s just rapping to a record, so I didn’t really give her points for creativity and didn’t really watch the whole thing. Later on, my friends and I met up at the main stage to see Chris Rock who couldn’t have been funnier. All us guys were laughing so hard, we ran into coughing fits that left us hunched over, trying to recover our breath. I stayed to watch Metallica after Rock just because I never saw them growing up, but I was never a fan during my adolecesense. It was okay. They apparently played the hits and my roommates seemed to enjoy it. I thought it was funny though that these guys who are so much older now, with wedding rings on and kids were trying to rock out like they did almost 17 years ago on the stage in front of me. They seemed a little in genuine to me and that might not be due to lack of trying, but rather to the fact they are outdated, or the fact that I just really don’t fancy Metallica. I called it a night after that. I meant to go back to the tent, regroup and refresh, but when I sat down, not only did I almost fall asleep, but also it started to rain, heavily. I was a prisoner under the pavilion we’d set up and someone had lowered it really close to the ground so that you had to bend over to get underneath it. So there I was with Matt, my brother, and the Js. Travis and Brian were out at the festival grounds most likely getting drenched. For fear of our tent flooding, I headed for the van and slept the night in back.

By Saturday morning, it was clear and sunny again. It was like it never rained and if it wasn’t for the patchy cloud cover in the morning, you’d never see any sign that it did. I decided to get a jump on things and head for the $7.00 showers because Saturday was going to be the biggest of all days as far as time spent in the sun, acts to be seen, and other things to be done. I needed to be mentally and physically prepared. I headed out around 3:15pm to catch the end of Against Me!’s set and headed over to the Which stage to get a good spot for Gogol Bordello who couldn’t have put on a better set to date. The formula was similar to other shows with a few notable differences. It was good gypsy dance rock and I loved every minute of it. Matt Reeb, who with my brother came out there with me headed right for the mosh pit and grabbed that concert by its horns. I tried to follow, but the people were compressed and Matt seemed to have something to prove. He last for about half the set and I kept eyes on him until I saw him make a B-line for the nearest crowd exit. I supposed something was wrong, but was trapped by people all around me, not to mention being lulled closer by Gogol’s siren songs for the finale. I would go on to see Ben Folds, Iron & Wine and then over to Jack Johnson where I met Travis and Mike to prepare for Pearl Jam’s evening set. Mike still seemed to loath Jack Johnson and all the people around us that were singing to his Hawaiian, relaxed, bouncy, love songs, but Travis seemed to enjoy it and even remarked that he thought he was good. I’ve always sort of liked Jack Johnson, but to be totally honest, I was there for the Pearl Jam push. Those few seconds when the crowds would open up after Jack Johnson and Travis and would make our way up to the front for Pearl Jam.

Then something happened. Matt called Travis trying to find the keys to the van. We had decided that someone holding on to the keys every day was unfair to any one of us that wanted to go back to the van to regroup so I decided Saturday that the keys should be stashed somewhere nearby for the day. Travis hid them and then text us the location. Matt and my brother couldn’t find them to save their lives and it seemed that one of us (Mike, Travis or myself) were going to have to leave and go back to help out because as it turned out, both my brother Bryan and Matt were in a darker place. It was frustrating because Jack Johnson had already played the majority of his set and Ed Ved had just come out to do a song with him too. Finally, I called them back and verbally whipped them both into finding the keys and sure enough, after like twenty minutes of looking, they found them. Turns out they were just looking in the wrong place. Geniuses. So Mike hung back and Travis and I pushed to the front. We got as close as we possibly could (turns out there was a pit area fenced off that we knew nothing about, but people were waiting three hours to get into). And then, right at 10:15, it happened. Pearl Jam took the stage and played the most amazing, set of rarities and hits alike. Ed Ved had his words to say about the war, gas, and voting, but other than that, it was rock, rock, and more rock. I’m ashamed at myself for not bringing my camera and not getting this act on 1s and 0s. I was worried about rain and wanted to travel light that day. It was incrEdible in EvEry way PEarl Jam was ExpEctEd to be in my mind. They closed the show with “All Along the Watchtower,” and to be honest, I just looked at Travis in amazement. I was speechless and could only vocalize my enthusiasm and excitement in shrills towards the heavens. I would later lose my voice. It was the closest and best Pearl Jam concert I had ever seen and Bonnaroo was the main reason for both of those achievements getting accomplished. I will never forget Mike McCreedy wailing on his guitar while he had it suspended behind him facing back stage, playing with his eyes closed. I will never forget how badass Matt Cameron was/is and how he has been the best addition to Pearl Jam courtesy of Soundgarden. His timing and improvisation are just awe inspiring. Ed Ved, Jeff and Stone are the center three though and together reflected what my heart felt throughout their entire THREE HOUR SET. I decided that after that show, I would always try to spend VIP prices to get the best seats for Pearl Jam concerts because I realized that I would go to every Pearl Jam show I could for the rest of my life.

Travis, Mike and I after comparing awesomeness about the concert we just witnessed went back to the mushroom fountain where Chromeo was going on via Sigur Ros who has just started their two-hour set on another stage. I love Sigur Ros, but one thing is certain for that band; they have to play in a conservatory or a concert hall, otherwise the silence in their music just gets raped by the sound of loud annoying people and consumerism and in this case, the sound of other acts in the park. Chromeo was cool, but again my mind was still hard stuck on Pearl Jam. We met up with Brian Scipione and his cool friend, our cool friend Lane who was with us from Seattle. Then we all headed back to the scene of Pearl Jam’s musical ass-whipping to prepare for Kanye “Mutherfucking” West.

I’m won’t lie here, he didn’t come on till 4:30am which pissed A LOT of people off considering he was scheduled to go on at 2:15am. My friends and I who were waiting to see this “production” decided against leaving to see some other acts that we could hear across the park and desperately wanted to experience. They pushed back the time until finally making us wait for about an hour. Chants of “Fuck Kanye” and audible “Boos” could be heard all around. We just waited. Finally, the lights went out and he came on and to Kanye’s credit, what unfolded before our eyes was intense to say the least.
An explosion of lights, sound and a Broadway style production unfolded bEforE us. For the seven our eight songs he played, we were in a trance and the tunes were awesome. Then we noticed the sun coming up and two songs later, it was over. That was it. Some people chose to take the anger and dissatisfaction out on Kanye, cursing his name, others were too tired to say or think anything. I mean, after all, it was about 6:30 in the morning. I chose to blame Bonnaroo and considered that somewhere along the way, the people responsible for putting this whole festival on, in conjunction with Kanye’s Ego, did not take into account the time and energy and precise planning necessary to execute a show of this magnitude. And it turns out I was right. Kanye blogs here on June 24th about the fiasco. Finally the truth comes out. Anyway, we got back to the campgrounds, Mike went to sleep in car, Travis and stayed up briefly and then Travis crashed. I opted to stay up simply because the mornings at these festivals were always the prettiest.

Sunday was brief and used as a day to relax and not go out of our ways to tire ourselves any more than necessary. I caught Death Cab for Cutie and then headed over to the cinema to watch game 5 of the Celtics and Lakers, which was not good.

All and all, Bonnaroo presented us boys with memories that would last a lifetime. Mainly, it felt like an exercise in friendship. It felt like I was forced to “check in” with my close friends whom I’ve know for over 10 years now, some, in the case of Mike Byers, I’ve known since I was five. Oddly enough, it was him I wanted to kill the most. Just kidding, it never came to that on the trip. Everyone knew when our respective buttons were getting pushed too much and when it was time to retire to our “safe” corners. My brother who was annihilated the last night of Bonnaroo had a good time and I’m glad I was with him on his first festival stint. In the end, I think we all came out a little better people, if not as friends, then as individuals.